Trump: McCain on Steroids?

Ironically, one of the early targets of Donald Trump’s candidacy was Senator John McCain. If there’s one candidate in the too-large GOP field that reminds the casual observer of John McCain, it’s Donald Trump -- John McCain on steroids with a bad rug.

As a conservative with some libertarian leanings, one of the most important reasons I couldn't support John McCain for the nomination in 2008 was that he had ceased being a reliable conservative long before. His nickname the Maverick, which was given by a then-adoring media, spoke to his frequent wandering from the GOP reservation. But it wasn’t because the GOP was too moderate and he was staking out a conservative position; he was siding with liberal Democrats and undermining the conservative agenda.

Too often, Senator McCain’s policy positions were based on his own personal beliefs rather than any known, coherent political ideology. For example, he was a staunch supporter of "campaign finance reform," which most conservatives see as an infringement on our constitutional right to free political speech. Hell, even the Supreme Court agreed. McCain-Feingold was an abomination, and its Republican champion was disqualified from my consideration during primary season.

McCain’s apostasies are too numerous to count. He’s held the line on abortion, but on just about everything else he could find -- tax cuts, immigration, campaign-finance reform, Guantanamo -- he not only opposed the conservative consensus but insisted on doing so with ostentatious self-righteousness.

The point is that McCain, like Trump, represented a grab bag of ideas that had his personal approval in common and little else. And if anyone characterizes “ostentatious self-righteousness” more than McCain, it’s Donald Trump. "Yuge," 24-carat ostentatious self-righteousness, the classiest and most beautiful ostentatious self-righteousness you’ve ever seen.